M. Giant's
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Sunday, August 20, 2006  

Not Movin' On Up.

For the past few months Trash and I had been agonizing over whether we should move into a bigger house or expand the one we've got.

On the side in favor of moving, we could end up with a bigger, cheaper house, and we wouldn't have to live in a hotel with a toddler for six to eight weeks while a construction crew expands our upper floor.

On the side against moving, we really hate moving. We hate the boxing things up, the not knowing where anything is, all the chaos and dust and stress and work, all the organizing, all the heavy lifting. We hate it. Also, we hate it some more.

Years ago, we thought we'd have a perfect plan in place for if we'd ever moved. For some reason, nearly everyone we knew moved in about a two-year period, and we built up so much moving karma that when our turn came, Trash and I could just watch our friends pack, schlep, and unpack our stuff. In between our naps, that is.

But then all those people moved away, so that turned out to be a flaw in our plan.

What really swung out decision in favor of remodeling was hearing about a contractor who could not only do what we want done in a month, but can also do it without us having to move completely out of our home in the process. We'll have to sleep downstairs for a while, of course, but it beats the hell out of moving entirely.

The plan is to expand the space and add a new bedroom for M. Small, a second bathroom, and a new workspace for me. This is going to involve literally raising the back half of the roof to make room for everything. And yet we can still live here throughout the process. Basically all we have to do is move all of the stuff out of our upper floor, which is now one big bedroom. How hard can it be to clear out one bedroom?

We started by bringing home a few boxes home from work every night. Over a month ago, I began boxing up the mysteries and SF books that we moved upstairs almost two years ago. Those boxes got stacked up behind the bar, meaning we now have no access to beer for the duration. Of course, we had to clean out the space behind the bar first, to make room.

A bunch of other, largely weather- and mouse-proof stuff, got packed into large plastic bins that are currently taking up space in the garage, along with the upstairs bookcases. We had to clean out the garage first, to make room.

A lot of the stuff on the finished side of our basement had to get moved over to the unfinished side. We had to clean out the unfinished side first, to make room.

Once that was done, I could clean out the finished side of the basement. Some of the stuff went into the unfinished side, some behind the bar, and some into the garage, all of which needed a little more cleaning to make room.

There's not much left in our bedroom now except our bed, Trash's computer workspace, and our clothes. Not even all of our clothes; many garments have already been boxed up and put into storage.

When it comes time to relocate downstairs, all we'll have to do is wrestle our queen-sized bed into the basement, schlep Trash's computer desk into the garage, dismantle the computer and set it up on the bar, and put the remaining clothes into the suitcases and the rolling clothes rack from which we'll be living for the next several weeks.

We're both so glad we're not moving.

posted by M. Giant 9:20 PM 3 comments

3 Comments:

With luck you will have something more secure than a tarp between you and the first frost. Also make sure you have a permit taped to your front window - even better, try to have someone you trust around during the inspector visits.

Builders are like errant children, they need to be kept in check.

Your poor grass patch has no chance now does it? Now it gets assaulted with building material...and then winter. Poor grass.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at August 20, 2006 at 11:09 PM  

My parents are finishing up adding a new master bed/bathroom, which involved everything out of their living room and garage (the bedroom was going over those two rooms, so the roof was going to be torn off). It was a pain and they were cramped for six weeks or so, but ultimately it's worth it in terms of not starting completely over in a new place. I think you made the right choice!

By Blogger amy, at August 21, 2006 at 7:34 AM  

I feel your pain buddy. We moved to a new place a month ago, which we had to buy at emergency speed because they were going to tear down our old appartment building. Now it turns out things won't move in such a hurry. But we've moved already.
For weeks I've been working frantically to get the ground floor in acceptable condition. And what do the cats do once they've set paw in their new home? Well, tear down the place off course. Starting with the expensive wallpaper.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at August 21, 2006 at 1:22 PM  

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